Reincarnated as Genghis Khan's Grandson, I Will Not Let It Fall-Chapter 52: What He Brought With Him

The lamp was nearly out. The second watch had run. Batu looked at Kirsa across the table.

"Your pair read the body from what distance."

"Far enough to hold without being seen. They stayed out after the first contact."

Kirsa paused. "There were two of them. The larger moved directly north. A second force moved further west, on a separate heading. Angled toward the river."

"How much faster than the first."

"Fast enough to reach the bank before the larger body clears the channel, if both held their pace."

"The western approach," Batu said.

Kirsa held his gaze. "They were going to different points. A force moving on a common objective holds its heading."

Batu told him to get Torghul, Dorbei, Khulgen, and Siban. Now.

They came in the dark while the camp was still running its pre-dawn cycle. Torghul arrived first, then Khulgen, then Siban. Dorbei came last, his face carrying nothing.

Batu waited until all four were settled, then looked at Kirsa.

"Tell them what you told me."

Kirsa gave the account plainly. Two bodies from the south, separately angled, the larger moving north from the streambed, the second moving further west toward the river.

He said it once and stopped.

Torghul’s eyes went to the felt on the table. It was open from Batu’s work through the night, the camp marked, the river to the north.

"He’s moving against the western approach," Torghul said.

"He watched it for months," Siban said. "He knows every ford on the north bank. His men ran that ground after we crossed. He’s had it mapped from both sides since before we moved south."

Dorbei looked at Torghul.

"If those riders are across and moving toward camp while we’re held at the channel, the camp takes pressure from the west and the eastern ford goes behind them." He set a hand flat on the table’s edge. "The supply line. The corridor."

"He read the junction gap," Torghul said. He wasn’t asking it.

"He had half a year to read it," Siban said. "A commander who withdraws in order and stops at the rear of his line to look at the field before turning south."

He looked at the felt. "He’s been building from that since the day he turned."

Batu let it sit. The four men around the table had the picture.

"One third of his force to the far bank," Batu said. "Two thirds to the advance." 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Dorbei looked at him. "How do you arrive at one third."

"A commander guaranteeing a river passage sends enough to overwhelm what’s on the north bank and still leave his main body strong enough to occupy us at the drainage line. One third does both."

Khulgen had the supply felt in his hands. He held it without spreading it and looked at the table.

"If that contingent completes the passage before we can respond, the eastern ford goes behind them. The corridor access runs through that crossing." He set the felt down. "That window closes when they’re on the north bank in force."

Torghul put his finger on the streambed.

"Meet his advance here. Before it clears onto the flat." He traced north across the map to where the first battle had been fought.

"They can’t use the feigned withdrawal from that frozen ground. A body clearing difficult terrain on a fixed timeline has no space to draw us forward. If we’re pressing from the north while they’re trying to cross it, they’re fighting on the ground they chose as their rally line."

"His commanders won’t follow a feigned withdrawal," Siban said. "They watched the mangudai doctrine from the south side of the first engagement and they’ve been planning since."

"If Chaidu’s men pull back, his advance holds that line and waits for the second contingent to close. His forward line’s function in this arrangement is to occupy us here. The far bank is where he means to settle it."

Torghul looked at him steadily.

"A line absorbing a push from the north and holding frozen ground behind it has to answer what’s in front of it. If his men are answering us, they’re carrying a fight they didn’t plan at this stage."

The argument was real. Torghul was assessing what a forced engagement produced in the mechanics of the ground. Siban was tracking the commander who’d built the arrangement.

Both were right, and the two assessments didn’t arrive at the same answer.

Dorbei had been still for longer than he’d been still at the crossing council table.

"The observation post at the far bank," he said. "What strength."

"Enough to watch the passage and bring word when it begins," Batu said.

"And if they’re overrun before word reaches us."

"Then we respond to what we can see."

Dorbei held his gaze for a moment.

"Every push that went south of the lower river in my time came back having spent more than it gained. Attention fixed south, response needed somewhere else, the gap between the report and the answer too long to close in time."

"I know," Batu said.

Dorbei said nothing further. He looked at the map.

Khulgen spread the supply felt.

"His advance has been behind the streambed since the battle. Call it several thousand, with losses to desertion before he moved. The second contingent at one third puts roughly that share at the far bank." He folded the felt. "Once both are in contact, the numbers close toward even."

"The liaison rider," Torghul said. He said it without looking up from the map.

"The function’s been worked out. My riders know it. One man attached to the observation post whose only function is to carry what the observers see to the main body the moment they see it." He paused. "The report moves when the event moves."

"It’s never run in a field engagement," Dorbei said.

"No," Torghul said. "It hasn’t."

The tent held that. Outside, the dark carried the sounds of the camp waking before orders had come.

"The main body goes south," Batu said.

"We meet his advance at the streambed before it clears. The observers hold the far bank and one man carries word the moment that force enters the water." He looked at Dorbei. "If the timing works, we’re pressing his line and have warning before those riders are fully across. If it doesn’t, we adjust on the ground."

Dorbei said nothing further.

Torghul and Khulgen went out together to begin forming the column. Siban followed. Dorbei paused at the tent entrance.

"That ground near winter," he said, looking at the felt. "Frozen soil around the channel. Hard going for horses in a push at pace."

He looked up. "Berke knows it. He’s managed that territory through every winter this country has had."

"So have his horses," Batu said.

Dorbei went out.

Kirsa was still at the table. He had watched the council from opening to close and said nothing after his account.

"The observation post," Batu said. "Your riders."

"Yes."

"Four men at the bank. Bayan brings word." He paused. "He reads fast."

"He does," Kirsa said.

"Tell him word goes when the first rider enters the water. When they enter."

Kirsa went.

Outside, the pre-dawn dark carried the sounds of a column forming. Animals at the lines, equipment being checked, Penk’s relay riders moving between the mingans with the timing adjusted for a force going south.

The sounds had a direction.

Batu rolled the felt and took it with him.

The column was taking shape at the camp’s southern edge when he came through the gate. Frost on the grass, the steppe beyond the earthworks running flat into the dark.

The streambed was somewhere ahead of them, and behind it a prepared force moving north at two angles toward two different points on the river.

Torghul was at the front of the forming line. He looked at Batu once and turned back to the column.

The rear forces were still closing their spacing when the light came up in the east, thin and hard, running flat across the frozen grass.

The ground between the camp and the streambed had been Berke’s territory for years. It had been fought over once already.

What it gave back this time was still ahead of them in the pale coming light.